Jonathan Ray

We are delighted to publish the winning entries of our recent competition to find the best limericks in praise of English wine, in celebration of English Wine Week (20-28 June). The winner, none other than the Earl of Limerick himself, receives a deliciously effervescent prize comprised of three bottles of 2019 Chapel Down Sparkling Bacchus – a deliciously aromatic expression of England’s ‘own’ grape – and three bottles of award-winning Chapel Down Brut NV – a tasty blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Meunier. The three runners-up, Martyn Marriott, Bob Turvey and Tim Wardle, will each receive a signed copy of my book Drink More Fizz! in which many English sparklers feature.

What did you do during the great lockdown, Daddy? Well, son, I grew a beard, watched all 264 episodes of Frasier and became a raging inebriate. Well, I didn’t so much grow a beard deliberately as do nothing to stop it sprouting. And while I fully intend to see the whole Frasier canon chronologically, I have only reached episode 149 thus far. As for the vino, since I’m still just managing to stick to a strict 6 p.m. uncorking time, I claim I’m not a complete soak, toper or dipso. That’s not to say I don’t obsess all day about what I’m going to drink in the evening because I do, just as I fuss about what’s for dinner the minute I clear breakfast away.

English Wine Week, that annual celebration of our native wines and winemakers which runs from 20 to 28 June, is almost upon us. And with some 2,500 hectares under vine in England and Wales, spread across more than 700 vineyards, and with 160 or so commercial wineries producing some remarkable wines, our winemaking industry would appear to have much to celebrate. Our sparklers in particular are now generally agreed to be as fine as any in the world.However, with restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels currently closed, there are far fewer opportunities for wine producers to get their wares under our noses and they have never needed our support more. We need to get drinking!

I swear it’s only the vino that keeps me and Mrs Ray going. I mean, there’s precious little else to look forward to these days. I’ve given up on the impossible jigsaw, can only watch so much telly and if I never do another Zoom quiz it’ll be too soon. No, all I look forward to post-breakfast is that first 6 p.m. glass. Well, that and the day my teenage boys finally discover where the dishwasher’s hiding. I don’t ask much; tonight it’s just something chilled and Three Men in a Boat. Bliss! This week’s offer from Armit Wines boasts six corkers from Italy and a tasty trio from Chile. We start with the 2018 Agricola Punica Samas (1) from Sardinia.

I admit it freely: I’m a lockdown lush. There, I’ve said it. I simply can’t help but be undone by the siren call of the corkscrew which — during these dark times — comes earlier each day. And, judging by the titanic quantities of vino I see knocked back during my early evening Zoom calls with fellow sots, I’m not alone. Indeed, it’s clearly impossible for folk to hear the word ‘Zoom’ without reaching automatically for well-chilled Fino or Sauvignon Blanc. Talk about Pavlov’s blooming dog. Anyway, in the absence of any convenient mast to be strapped to, I’m glorying in my weakness and have brought forward uncorking time from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. Six fine French wines from two fabled producers It was Mrs Ray’s idea.

I don’t know about you but lockdown is slightly losing its lustre Chez Ray. Joke over, thanks, let’s just get back to normality, whatever the new normality might be. In the meantime, though, as the drear days of social distancing and isolation turn to weeks and the weeks to months, it’s strange what delight one finds in tiny — often guilty — pleasures. You know, like doing jigsaws for the first time in 50 years, listening to the complete Gilbert and Sullivan, re-reading Dick Francis and Dorothy L. Sayers, cataloguing my heavy metal LPs and scoffing garlic by the bag-load without fear of making folk faint on the Tube. Oh and not shaving. What utter bliss that is!

So herewith the Speccie’s 10,000th issue. Hurrah! And what finer reason needed to crack open some tip-top vino? My old man, Cyril Ray, from whom I learned my love of the grape, was assistant editor here in the days of Brian Inglis, Bernard Levin and Katharine Whitehorn, having started his career in 1936 as a reporter on what was then the Manchester Guardian. I remember him telling me that when he was first taken around the MG’s reporters’ room, a hunched figure in the corner was indicated. ‘That’s Gerald,’ he was told. ‘Make friends with him. He owns the typewriter.

Well, I never expected to spend my 60th birthday under lock and key, that’s for sure. I had a slightly troubled youth, it’s true, with several run-ins with the rozzers during my teens — culminating in a salutary scolding at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court in August 1976 — but after a (fairly) blameless middle age, I thought that was it. I did not anticipate my current incarceration. But then nor, I imagine, did you anticipate yours. We live in unnerving times and I don’t mean to be flippant when I say that never was wine more vital. I’m not promoting the abuse of alcohol, merely its sensible consumption, for it has been proved to my satisfaction that when taken in moderation in the form of wine, alcohol can undoubtedly be beneficial to health.

These are strange days indeed and Mrs Ray and I are positively hoovering through the vino. Thanks heavens, then, that independent wine merchants are still delivering. They are nothing less than the fourth emergency service and I give them a hearty hip, hip, hurrah. And enormous thanks, too, to Esme Johnstone of FromVineyardsDirect. So tasty and wide was the selection that he sent me that it was the devil’s own job to make my choices. Still, there are worse ways to spend my isolation than getting gently sozzled on readers’ behalf. I’d hate my work to be wasted though, so do stock up on this deliberately large, bumper offer. The 2019 Racine Picpoul de Pinet (1) is spot on.

I fear Jason Yapp is slowing up a bit. The co-proprietor (with step-brother Tom Ashworth) of Yapp Bros is notorious for his love of long lunches so I felt more than a little short-changed when, last week, he dashed for the early train before the digestif trolley had even slipped its moorings and steamed into view. Last time, lunch went on until midnight and so impressed were the restaurant’s staff that we received a guard of honour on departure and a free umbrella. No such luck on this occasion. Still, the Yapps’ wines remain resolutely on song and we dipped our beaks into some crackers, six of which I present to you here with hearty commendation.

Spring wouldn’t be spring without our annual offer from Chateau Musar, that extraordinary Lebanese winery that is the epitome of triumph over adversity. As readers well know, Auberon Waugh and Simon Hoggart — my late, great predecessors as Custodian of the Corkscrew for The Spectator — were huge fans of Chateau Musar and I, too, have long been smitten. Indeed, I’m sure that Fraser’s chief concern on handing me the key to the Speccie’s cellar was that I was as sound on Musar as those who had worn the mighty chain of office before me had been. Well, he needn’t have worried. I love mighty Musar and know how much our readers do too. Thanks to Mark Cronshaw of Mr. Wheeler, we’ve a fine selection here.